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Refuse to Dance. The theatre of Howard Barker - ACE165.2
No full textHoward Barker. His VO saying "I do not believe what I say about my work has any validity. The question is, whether the work itself has validity." Harriet Walter in excerpt from The Castle (1985). Caption: "Howard Barker has written over 40 plays for stage, radio, television and film." Barker. His VO: "I don’t believe in the interview. I believe the artist should not be interviewed. He is only truthful in the moment of creativity." Actor Ian McDiarmid: "The truth lies somewhere between the coarse emotion and the calculation… Don’t keep on about the truth…." McDiarmid in interview. Magazines, posters, McDiarmid talks about The Castle. Caption: "Skinner, a witch, had worked some magic whilst the men were at the Crusades". Harriet Walter in excerpt from The Castle. McDiarmid on Barker’s writing on sexuality, areas rarely brought to the surface in the theatre. Harriet Walter and Penny Downie in excerpt from The Castle. Downie and Walter interviewed about The Castle, Barker’s writing, and the impact working on the play made on them
Irrational theatre : the challenge posed by the plays of Howard Barker for contemporary performance theory and practice
Get PDFThis study arose out of an awareness that contemporary performance theories
and production techniques were not appropriate to the plays of Howard
Barker. The first section, a comparison of Barker with Edward Bond,
attempts to 'situate' the former with reference to a major dramatist of the
seventies and early eighties. This reveals a number of significant
differences, including almost diametrically opposed conceptions of the
function of drama.
In the second section, I consider Barker against a wider background of
deconstructive and postmodernist thinking. As opposed to Bond's Brechtian
notion of a Rational theatre, I argue that Barker's theatre is irrational
and suggest that irrational interaction is Seduction. Barker's plays are
considered from the point of view of a theory of seduction - in particular
Jean Baudrillard's. There follows a review of a range of discourses on
performance by influential practitioners such as Stanislavsky. Although
seduction is identifiable in all their practices, it is almost universally
denied or shunned - except by Grotowski. Also the focus of acting technique
is invariably on the actor/character relation with little consideration of
interaction with others.
The third section considers in some detail two plays by Barker - JUDITH and
THE CASTLE, analysing them from a seductive perspective
Howard Barker Day
No full textThe author comments on Howard Barker Day at Riverside Studios in London, England, which included a reading of "Worship and Wonder in the Dying World," a small-scale production of "Slowly," directed by Hanna Berrigan, and the Wrestling School's production of "Hurts Given and Received," directed by Gerrard McArthu
Interview with Howard Barker
No full textPlaywright Howard Barker is briefly interviewed about his theater company, the Wrestling School. He comments on how the company works together, Arts Council funding cuts, and upcoming project
Refuse to Dance. The theatre of Howard Barker
No full textHoward Barker. His VO saying "I do not believe what I say about my work has any validity. The question is, whether the work itself has validity." Harriet Walter in excerpt from The Castle (1985). Caption: "Howard Barker has written over 40 plays for stage, radio, television and film." Barker. His VO: "I don’t believe in the interview. I believe the artist should not be interviewed. He is only truthful in the moment of creativity." Actor Ian McDiarmid: "The truth lies somewhere between the coarse emotion and the calculation… Don’t keep on about the truth…." McDiarmid in interview. Magazines, posters, McDiarmid talks about The Castle. Caption: "Skinner, a witch, had worked some magic whilst the men were at the Crusades". Harriet Walter in excerpt from The Castle. McDiarmid on Barker’s writing on sexuality, areas rarely brought to the surface in the theatre. Harriet Walter and Penny Downie in excerpt from The Castle. Downie and Walter interviewed about The Castle, Barker’s writing, and the impact working on the play made on them. John Calder of Calder & Boyers gives his reasons for publishing Barker’s work. Caption: "VICTORY. Choices in Reaction. The Royal Court, 1983." Still. Professor Eric Mottram, London University, talks of Barker as being a playwright who breaks the shibboleths and leaves the audience feeling "damaged". McDiarmid. "…Free words from louts and professors." Mottram talking about Barker’s use of language. McDiarmid reading Don’t Exaggerate; A Political Statement in the Form of Hysteria. Cora Kaplan, Lecturer, Sussex University, on Barker’s "language of the self". Excerpt from No End of Blame, written in 1980. Paul Freeman as Bela. Kaplan commenting on No End of Blame and on Scenes from an Excecution. Caption: "SCENES FROM AN EXECUTION won his first major award – the Prix Italia for radio drama. Actors Maggie Steed and Elizabeth Rider seen firstly as shadows, then reading. Steed talking with Kaplan about Barker empowering his female characters. Caption: "The English knight compels an Arab engineer to build his fortress, and a wayward priest to return to his church." Excerpt from The Castle. Stucley, Krak, Nailer and Batter (McDiarmid, Paul Freeman, Tony Mathews, Steve Swinscoe). Parts of the Barbican complex. VO reading "I had a nightmare once. People spent their lives making something they called museum… And the museum grew until it covered England" Caption: "PITY IN HISTORY. One of Barker’s many plays for television. One of the few to have been transmitted. VO "The whole power of art is its disconcerting ability to burst the received wisdom of its own time...." Caption: "Barker’s first play was produced in London in 1970. He has survived as a playwright since that date." Terry Hands, Joint Artistic Director, Royal Shakespeare Company, talking about British theatre going through a period of depression which results in Barker’s sometimes difficult work appealing to a minority not only interested in escapism. McDiarmid "… Trust the digression, not the argument…" Hands likens Barker’s work to that of Genet and Artaud, both in content and popularity. Shot of Barker apparently listening. Nick Hamm, Director, RSC, believes there is a need and a market for "serious theatre", and that Barker’s work has "something important to say about the state of the country". Bill Alexander, Director, RSC, talking about the achievement of the recent RSC season of Barker’s work.
Hamm and Alexander considering the possibility of Barker making ‘concessions’ towards a more populist approach in order to communicate his ideas more widely. Barker listening. VO asking "How can you know where you’ll go with a work of art? It takes you further from knowledge the more risks you take…" McDiarmid "Art brings chaos into order… The final solution to the problem of art – it is a problem, after all – is to call it incomprehensible. To burn it only lends it grace." Barbican. West End theatres. Billboards. VO "I like confusion on the face of the audience. Engagement but confusion…" People on the streets. McDiarmid "Most acting in bad. Most theatres are crates of shame. The curtain falling on the sordid act like the skirt of the hired woman."
The Castle Press Night. Sheila Fox of City Limits and Michael Billington of The Guardian discussing the play. He finds the play "ambiguous". She finds Barker "patronising". Benedict Nightingale talking about his reactions to Barker’s work. Barker. VO "But of course the plays contradict themselves. They have to contradict themselves…" Nightingale on The Castle. Mottram quotes an unsympathetic review by Milton Shulman and then says that the audience brings its own knowledge to a play. Calder believes that "Barker forces us to face reality…" McDiarmid "The newspapers are lies. The newspapers obviously…" Caption: "DOWNCHILD. Written in 1979." McDiarmid as the Art Critic, folding newspaper into a hat. "I thought, when I began my column, when I invented Cockie’s ‘Window on the World’, to set two squalors side by side…" Mottram suggesting that it’s important for audiences to be supportive of "this kind of play" in contemporary society.Stills. Caption: "THE CASTLE. RSC, The Pit, 1985." More stills. Mottram on the ways in which characters in Barker’s plays are forced to "re-form" themselves. Stucley and Krak. Skinner and Cant (Katherine Rogers). talking about snow and toads etc. Soldiers. VO over sketches by Barker. "They say the work is not optimistic. What right has anyone to be optimistic? That would be self-delusion of magnificent proportions ..." Calder on Barker’s anti-authoritarianism and politics. He is concerned that Barker may be banned in an increasingly right wing society. McDiarmid "England. Where the coinage is not convincing. The crowds are violent with debt and the passion of the populace is not for love… but fun…" VO "The problem for Socialism is that it appears necessary for it to be, if effective, based in authority…" Barker "listening". Freeman VO theatre interior: "Listen! They want you to dance. Put wax in your ears. They insist on your dancing. Tie down your feet… Now therefore refuse to dance…" Credits
The theatre of promiscuity : a comparative study of the dramatic writings of Wole Soyinka and Howard Barker
Get PDFThe word 'artist serves as a pivot to the major concerns of this study. Consideration of its application and meaning in relation to contemporary society facilitates a detailed exploration and analysis of selected dramatic writings by Wole Soyinka and Howard Barker. The comparative nature of this work begins by charting the parallel journeys of these writers - within widely differing cultural contexts - from a critique of social determinations which serve to define and bound authorial intent to a process of "promiscuous" self-definition whereby the artistic imagination is used to name and designate a specific relationship to the cultural and social structures within which their work will be received.
Working from a theoretical base which, in the case of Soyinka, finds its foundations in critique and commentary upon nationalist discourse, and in the case of Barker,
rests upon contemporary critiques of Enlightenment reason, the study debates their development of theatrical form within both social and cultural contexts. Emphasis is
placed upon the relationship of the author to the dramatic text, the creation of character and the defined channels of communication through which dramatic performance is to be received by the spectator. The concept of 'transgression' is
explored as a key principle by which to define the 'theatrical' as opposed to the 'social' text.
Chapters Four and Five link the work of Howard Barker and Wole Soyinka through the application of Nietzschean philosophy, with especial emphasis being placed upon
the concept of genealogical history, the creation of the aesthetic, and the consideration of 'tragedy' as a means by which to offer resistant critique to the social
imperative of national citizenship as a badge and boundary to identity. The formation of the 'tragic' or 'catastrophic' individual is explored through key dramatic texts, thus allowing dramatic form the status of a discourse in its own right.
Throughout the study an attempt is made to develop an argument which allows the artist to be distinguished as one who speaks to his nation, rather than for his nation.
With regard to the work of Barker and Soyinka this has involved both the exposure and exploration of a theatrical space unmapped by social cartography, and a peopling
of the stage with creations who could be described as 'ethical' rather than 'political' individuals
Refuse to Dance. The theatre of Howard Barker - ACE165.4
No full textParts of the Barbican complex. VO reading "I had a nightmare once. People spent their lives making something they called museum… And the museum grew until it covered England" Caption: "PITY IN HISTORY. One of Barker’s many plays for television. One of the few to have been transmitted. VO "The whole power of art is its disconcerting ability to burst the received wisdom of its own time...." Caption: "Barker’s first play was produced in London in 1970. He has survived as a playwright since that date." Terry Hands, Joint Artistic Director, Royal Shakespeare Company, talking about British theatre going through a period of depression which results in Barker’s sometimes difficult work appealing to a minority not only interested in escapism. McDiarmid "… Trust the digression, not the argument…" Hands likens Barker’s work to that of Genet and Artaud, both in content and popularity. Shot of Barker apparently listening. Nick Hamm, Director, RSC, believes there is a need and a market for "serious theatre", and that Barker’s work has "something important to say about the state of the country". Bill Alexander, Director, RSC, talking about the achievement of the recent RSC season of Barker’s work.
Hamm and Alexander considering the possibility of Barker making ‘concessions’ towards a more populist approach in order to communicate his ideas more widely. Barker listening. VO asking "How can you know where you’ll go with a work of art? It takes you further from knowledge the more risks you take…" McDiarmid "Art brings chaos into order… The final solution to the problem of art – it is a problem, after all – is to call it incomprehensible. To burn it only lends it grace." Barbican. West End theatres. Billboards. VO "I like confusion on the face of the audience. Engagement but confusion…" People on the streets. McDiarmid "Most acting in bad. Most theatres are crates of shame. The curtain falling on the sordid act like the skirt of the hired woman.
Refuse to Dance. The theatre of Howard Barker - ACE165.3
No full textJohn Calder of Calder & Boyers gives his reasons for publishing Barker’s work. Caption: "VICTORY. Choices in Reaction. The Royal Court, 1983." Still. Professor Eric Mottram, London University, talks of Barker as being a playwright who breaks the shibboleths and leaves the audience feeling "damaged". McDiarmid. "…Free words from louts and professors." Mottram talking about Barker’s use of language. McDiarmid reading Don’t Exaggerate; A Political Statement in the Form of Hysteria. Cora Kaplan, Lecturer, Sussex University, on Barker’s "language of the self". Excerpt from No End of Blame, written in 1980. Paul Freeman as Bela. Kaplan commenting on No End of Blame and on Scenes from an Excecution. Caption: "SCENES FROM AN EXECUTION won his first major award – the Prix Italia for radio drama. Actors Maggie Steed and Elizabeth Rider seen firstly as shadows, then reading. Steed talking with Kaplan about Barker empowering his female characters. Caption: "The English knight compels an Arab engineer to build his fortress, and a wayward priest to return to his church." Excerpt from The Castle. Stucley, Krak, Nailer and Batter (McDiarmid, Paul Freeman, Tony Mathews, Steve Swinscoe)
Refuse to Dance. The theatre of Howard Barker - ACE165.5
No full textThe Castle Press Night. Sheila Fox of City Limits and Michael Billington of The Guardian discussing the play. He finds the play "ambiguous". She finds Barker "patronising". Benedict Nightingale talking about his reactions to Barker’s work. Barker. VO "But of course the plays contradict themselves. They have to contradict themselves…" Nightingale on The Castle. Mottram quotes an unsympathetic review by Milton Shulman and then says that the audience brings its own knowledge to a play. Calder believes that "Barker forces us to face reality…" McDiarmid "The newspapers are lies. The newspapers obviously…" Caption: "DOWNCHILD. Written in 1979." McDiarmid as the Art Critic, folding newspaper into a hat. "I thought, when I began my column, when I invented Cockie’s ‘Window on the World’, to set two squalors side by side…" Mottram suggesting that it’s important for audiences to be supportive of "this kind of play" in contemporary society
Refuse to Dance. The theatre of Howard Barker - ACE165.6
No full textStills. Caption: "THE CASTLE. RSC, The Pit, 1985." More stills. Mottram on the ways in which characters in Barker’s plays are forced to "re-form" themselves. Stucley and Krak. Skinner and Cant (Katherine Rogers). talking about snow and toads etc. Soldiers. VO over sketches by Barker. "They say the work is not optimistic. What right has anyone to be optimistic? That would be self-delusion of magnificent proportions ..." Calder on Barker’s anti-authoritarianism and politics. He is concerned that Barker may be banned in an increasingly right wing society. McDiarmid "England. Where the coinage is not convincing. The crowds are violent with debt and the passion of the populace is not for love… but fun…" VO "The problem for Socialism is that it appears necessary for it to be, if effective, based in authority…" Barker "listening". Freeman VO theatre interior: "Listen! They want you to dance. Put wax in your ears. They insist on your dancing. Tie down your feet… Now therefore refuse to dance…" Credits
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